When on one side the grape-juice is dancing, And on t' other a blue eye beams, boy, beams, "T is enough, t'wixt the wine and the glancing, To disturb even a saint from his dreams. Though this life like a river is flowing, I care not how fast it goes on, boy, on, While the grape on its bank still is growing, And such eyes light the waves as they run. WHERE SHALL WE BURY OUR SHAME? Neapolitan Air. WHERE shall we bury our shame? Broken and stain'd by disgrace? Oppression will cease when we're gone : But the dishonour, the stain, Die as we may, will live on Was it for this we sent out Liberty's cry from our shore? Was it for this that her shout Thrill'd to the world's very core? Thus to live cowards and slaves, Oh! ye free hearts that lie dead! Do you not, e'en in your graves, Shudder, as o'er you we tread? NE'ER TALK OF WISDOM'S GLOOMY NE'ER talk of Wisdom's gloomy schools; To draw his moral thoughts and rules The diamond sleeps within the mine, The pearl beneath the water, While Truth, more precious, dwells in wine, Who thus can, like Leander, swim HERE SLEEPS THE BARD! HERE sleeps the Bard who knew so well The storm and zephyr sweep thy lifeless brow;— SACRED SONGS. TO THE REV. THOMAS PARKINSON, D. D. ARCHDEACON OF LEICESTER, CHANCELLOR OF CHESTER, AND RECTOR OF KEGWORTH This Number of "Sacred Songs" is Enscribed, BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL FRIEND, Sloperton Cottage, Devizes, May 22, 1824. THOMAS MOORE No. I. THOU ART, OH GOD! Air-UNKNOWN.' "The day is thine; the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. "Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter."-Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17. THOU art, oh God! the life and light Are but reflections caught from thee. When Day, with farewell beam, delays Through golden vistas into heaven- When Night, with wings of starry gloom, O'ershadows all the earth and skies, Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume Is sparkling with unnumbered eyesThat sacred gloom, those fires divine, So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine. When youthful Spring around us breathes, Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh; And every flower the Summer wreathes Is born beneath that kindling eye. Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine! THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW. Air-STEVENSON. THIS world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; 1 I have heard that this air is by the late Mrs. Sheridan. It is sung to the beautiful old words, "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair." The smiles of Joy, the tears of Woe, There's nothing true but heaven! As fading hues of Even; And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb, There's nothing bright but heaven! Poor wanderers of a stormy day, From wave to wave we're driven, And fancy's flash, and Reason's ray, Serve but to light the troubled wayThere's nothing calm but heaven! FALLEN IS THY THRONE. Lord! thou didst love Jerusalem- Then sunk the star of Solyma- 1 "I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly-beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies."-Jeremiah xii. 7. 2"Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory."-Jer. xiv. 21. 3 "The Lord called thy name a green olive-tree; fair and of goodly fruit," etc.-Jer. xi. 16. 4 "For he shall be like the heath in the desert."-Jer xvii. 6. Silent and waste her bowers, Where once the mighty trod, And sunk those guilty towers, While Baal reign'd as God! "Go," said the Lord-"Ye conquerors! O'er kindred bones shall tread, Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies Where idle warblers roam. But high she shoots through air and light, Above all low delay, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, So grant me, God! from every care To hold my course to Thee! WHO IS THE MAID? ST. JEROME'S LOVE.3 Air-BEETHOVEN. WHO is the maid my spirit seeks, Through cold reproof and slander's blight? Has she Love's roses on her cheeks? Is her's an eye of this world's light? Its beam is kindled from above. I chose not her, my soul's elect, From those who seek their Maker's shrine In gems and garlands proudly deck'd, As if themselves were things divine! Not so the faded form I prize And love, because its bloom is gone; Is all the grace her brow puts on. THE BIRD, LET LOOSE. THE bird, let loose in eastern skies, When hastening fondly home, 1 "Take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord's."-Jer. v. 10. 2 "Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be cailed Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place."-Jer. vii. 32. 3 These lines were suggested by a passage in St. Jerome's reply to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated upon his intimacy with the matron Paula :--" Numquid me vestes serice, nitentes gemmæ, picta facies, aut auri rapuit ambitio? Nulla fuit alia Rome matronarum, quæ meam possit edomare mentem, nisi lugens atque jejunans, fletu pene cæcata."-- Epist. "Si tibi putem." 4 ου γαρ χρυσοφορείν την δακρύουσαν δει.-Chrysost. Homil. 8. in Epist. ad Tim. 5 The carrier-pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined. OH! THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURN- "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."-Psalm cxlvii. 3. OH! Thou who dry'st the mourner's tear, Must weep those tears alone. When joy no longer soothes or cheers, A moment's sparkle o'er our tears, Is dimm'd and vanish'd too! Oh! who would bear life's stormy doom, Did not thy wing of love Come, brightly wafting through the gloom Our peace-branch from above? Then sorrow, touch'd by Thee, grows bright As darkness shows us worlds of light WEEP NOT FOR THOSE. WEEP not for those whom the veil of the tomb, To water that Eden where first was its source! Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb, In life's happy morning, hath hid from our eyes, Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom, And the garland of love was yet fresh on her brow! Oh! then was her moment, dear spirit, for flying SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL. MIRIAM'S SONG. Air-AVISON.' "And Miriam, the Prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her From this gloomy world, while its gloom was un-with timbrels and with dances."- Exod. xv. 20. known And the wild hymns she warbled so sweetly, in dying, Were echoed in heaven by lips like her own! Weep not for her,-in her spring-time she flew To that land where the wings of the soul are unfurl'd, And now, like a star beyond evening's cold dew, Looks radiantly down on the tears of this world. THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE. Air-STEVENSON. THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My choir shall be the moonlight waves, I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown, Thy heaven, on which 't is bliss to look, I'll read thy anger in the rack That clouds awhile the day-beam's track; Thy mercy in the azure hue Of sunny brightness breaking through! There's nothing bright, above, below, There's nothing dark, below, above, 1 This second verse, which I wrote long after the first, alludes to the fate of a very lovely and amiable girl, the daughter of the late Colonel Bainbrigge, who was married 10 Ashbourne church, October 31, 1815, and died of a fever in a few weeks after the sound of her marriage-bells seemed scarcely out of our ears when we heard of her death. During her last delirium she sung several hymns, in a voice even clearer and sweeter than usual, and among them were some from the present collection (particularly, "There's nothing bright but Heaven,") which this very interesting girl had often heard during the summer. 2 Pi orunt tacite. SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and braveHow vain was their boasting!-The Lord hath but spoken, And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd,-his people are free. Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord! Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride? For the Lord hath look'd out from his pillar of glory,2 And all her brave thousands are dash'd in the tide Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd,-his people are free. GO, LET ME WEEP! Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears, In bright exhalement reach the skies. Effaced by every drop that steals. Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew More idly than the summer's wind, 1 I have so altered the character of this air, which is from the beginning of one of Avison's old-fashioned concertos, that, without this acknowledgment, it could hardly I think, be recognised. 2 "And it came to pass, that, in the morning-watch, the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians."-Exod. xiv. 24. COME NOT, OH LORD! Air-HAYDN. COME not, oh Lord! in the dread robe of splendour WERE NOT THE SINFUL MARY'S TEARS. Air-STEVENSON. WERE not the sinful Mary's tears An offering worthy heaven, And wiped them with that golden hair, Were not those sweets so humbly shed, That hair-those weeping eyes,- Heaven's noblest sacrifice? Thou that hast slept in error's sleep, AS DOWN IN THE SUNLESS RETREATS. As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean, So, deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion, 1 "And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these."-Exod. xiv. 20. My application of this passage is borrowed from some late prose writer, whose name I am ungrateful enough to forget. 2 Instead of" On Egypt" here, it will suit the music better to sing "On these;" and in the third line of the next verse, "While shrouded" may, with the same view, be altered to "While wrapp'd." 3" Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."-St. Luke vii. 47. As still to the star of its worship, though clouded, BUT WHO SHALL SEE. BUT who shall see the glorious day; When pain shall cease, and every tear Then, Judah! thou no more shalt mourn Thy days of splendour shall return, And all be new again.4 The Fount of Life shall then be quaff'd In peace, by all who come!" And every wind that blows shall waft ALMIGHTY GOD! CHORUS OF PRIESTS. Air-MOZART. ALMIGHTY God! when round thy shrine And Love that "fadeth not away,") When round thy cherubs, smiling calm Without their flames, we wreath the palm, 1 "And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations."-Isaiah xxv. 7. 2 "The rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth."-Isaiah xxv. 8. 3 "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, neither shall there be any more pain."-Rev. xxi. 4. 4"And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new."-Rev. xxi. 5. 5 "And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."-Rev. xxii. 17. 6 The Scriptures having declared that the Temple of Jerusalem was a type of the Messiah, it is natural to conclude that the Palms, which made so conspicuous a figure in that structure, represented that Life and Immortality which were brought to light by the Gospel."-Observations on the Palm, as a sacred Emblem, by W. Tigbe. 7" And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers."-1 Kings vi. 29. 8" When the passover of the tabernacles was revealed to the great law-giver in the mount, then the cherubic images which appeared in that structure were no longer surrounded by flames; for the tabernacle was a type of the dispensation of mercy, by which Jehovah confirmed his gracious cove nant to redeem mankind."-Observations on the Palm |